Friday, July 8, 2011

Dinner gone bad and Pests in the garden

So, today hasn't been the best of days. I've got some family stuff going on and a new sick kid. Peanut didn't eat any dinner and then returned the other food she ate earlier today. She spent the rest of the evening in the love sac. Dinner was pretty much a bust. I thought it was decent, but Papa B didn't care for it at all. I made Pan Fried Chicken with Fresh Tomato and Corn Salsa and Herbed Couscous. The salsa is made of tomatoes, corn, onions and basil on top. The chicken was dipped in flour, buttermilk, and then a mixture of bread crumbs and basil. He didn't like the corn in the salsa and didn't like the couscous. I guess the other 2 boxes of couscous I have will get donated.

After I got dinner cleaned up and the kids put to bed (for the first time of the evening but not the last) I went outside to harvest and investigate the pests. My cabbage and broccoli (Papa B happily just pointed out that I called the dog "Sproccoli" as I was typing this and trying to yell at him) and have been getting eaten. The most obvious culprit would be the cabbage looper, but I hadn't seen any little green caterpillars. With my organic pest control spray in hand, I went out into the garden. Upon further inspection of the underside of the leaves of broccoli, I found the little buggers I was looking for. I am relieved to find definite proof of what is eating my plants. I also found the fuzzy caterpillar that was in my carrots a couple of days ago. He's now hanging out on my broccoli.

After some intense google searching I found out he's a Salt Marsh caterpillar and is not friendly. As you can see in my picture there's a hole in the leaf right where his head is, most likely as a result of his little caterpillar teeth. I'm sad that he's no friend of mine. The spray I got is supposed to take care of him. That makes me both happy and sad. I guess I'll go see what happened tomorrow.